DAY 18 AND 19-20

DAY 18

July 7, 2010

Cutbank, MT to Chester, MT

66? miles

There were two things today I really want to tell you about.

The first is about the escapades of Jane and Ellen, who are good friends and always bike together. Ellen is a kindergarten teacher in Vermont, and Jane is a former doctor, now in medical informatics. Jane also has knowledge of and an interest in government security procedures. So as they were biking, Jane spied an area down a dirt road perpendicular to route 2, and there was a metal fenced area, seemingly for no particular reason -- no animals confined, no crops, etc. But Jane knew. There was sort of a sattelite tower, but with a top that looked like a tuning fork. So they biked on the dirt road, leaned their bikes against the metal fence which, okay, did have a sign posted saying, "No trespassing. Property of U.S. Government." Whoosh!! Out of nowhere popped an FBI SUV with darkened windows that swung around and blocked their path. It stayed there, probably photographing these middle-aged subversives in bike shorts, then moved to the side of the path and stayed there as they slunk away on their bikes. Turned out it was an underground missile silo!! And as I biked the next day, now that I knew what to look for, I saw another one!

Contrasted with this was our arrival at the MX Motel in Chester, MT, which was the second thing I want to describe. We'd been prepared not to expect much, since at first they couldn't put all of us up, and Michelle was to have stayed in the "broom closet/shower room" with a cot moved in. They later said that a semi-regular guest there, a crop-dusting pilot, would stay with his sister so our whole group could have enough rooms, each with baths. Anyway, TJ and his wife have run this place for four years, but want to move to Misoula to be near grandkids if they can sell it. They've put a lot of money in it, and the "Executive Suites" with double jacuzzis that Penny and Jona had were the envy of all of us.

TJ owns a 1986 limousine, and after we had dinner in their very lovely backyard, he actually put on his genuine chauffeur's cap and gave us several limo rides around the town, pointing out that there were 8 churches and 4 bars, which he thought was a pretty good ratio. He pointed out the new town swimming pool with pride, and the K-12 school which draws from a 40-mile radius, as far as the Canadian border. He said houses, all smallish and tidy, generally sell for between $20,000 and $40,000. We had seen the downtown earlier upon arrival, eaten a late lunch

at Spud's Cafe, and also spent time in the public library, which has an espresso cafe. I thought to myself, "This place has more to do than Wenham!"

A bunch of us took an evening walk through the neighborhoods, seeing 13-year-old boys on bikes talking about their Dads with admiration, older boys shooting hoops with admiring girls nearby, and four "grownups" gathered in a small backyard roasting marshmallows at a firepit. We walked to the town's free museum, which I thought would be old, musty, and well, boring. It was anything but! It was filled with Americana -- WWI uniforms, old-style food containers in the "general store," manequins dressed in bridal gowns belonging to town residents from the 40's (made from the same McCall's sewing pattern, but embelleshed entirely differently), old sewing machines, medical implements and elixirs from long ago, a 1920's "kitchen" set up with a refrigerator and Hoosier cupboard, etc. There was a separate one-room schoolhouse that had been moved there, and each of the desks (all in rows) had child manequins dressed as the 1950's, one of them in a Girl Scout uniform. There was a big Dick and Jane reader, and those chalkboard gizmos that hold five pieces of chalk to draw musical notes, staff, etc.

I know this is a lot of narrative for one day, but at the end, we all pronounced it the most enchanting of towns and motels we'd visited.

DAY 19-20

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Chester, MT to Havre, MT

60 miles

We've had the Sweet Grass Hills to our left on the horizon for a day or two. Always, we have the railroad tracks, and there are lots of freight trains. Saw two Amtrak passenger trains, too. There are little towns with 50 to 200 people in them, just a quarter mile off the road on the left. Those having multiple grain elevators seem to prosper, while those with only one have not. They've lost their schools and stores, since trains with 100 cars or more won't stop for towns without lots of grain to load. Farmers were paid to grow prairie grass as a conservation measure signed in by Clinton before he left office, but then the farmers took the money they were paid, retired, and left.

I decided to stop at two or three of these little bitty towns to see what they're like, and had three really neat conversations.

Here's Dalton, beside his bar and lounge in Inverness.




It was 9 am, and as I drove into what's left of town, there were three rosy-cheeked overall-clad boys hosing down a combine. I asked where I could get a cup of coffee, and they pointed to this sketchy run-down bar. So I went in and met Dalton and his wife, and we talked about the decline of the town. He was curious about our biking, too. As I left, I asked if I could take his picture, and he said that would be all right. He also said, "I'll be 78 on Sunday," so as I snapped the picture, I said, "Happy Birthday, Dalton!" He clarified, "Well, on Sunday that is."

The next conversation was with Art Ogden, whose picture I didn't get. He was in Hingham,

MT which was distinguished by its tidy green yards and grid-like but unpaved roads throughout the town. At the town park, women were decorating with colored banners for the weekend's upcoming 100th birthday of the town, which has no school or store. (All of these towns are having 100th birthdays, since that's when the railroads were established here). I was biking by his house, and in his cowboy hat, he called out, "Are you bikin' so fer that you end up spendin' all yer money on food to keep you bikin'?" So we talked and I learned that he'd survived colon cancer in 1988 and later, three strokes. The third stroke last year found him having to learn to speak all over again, and he said, "When I found myself orderin' the woman around as usual, I figgered I was goin' to make it. Somebody up there doesn't want me."

I took a third detour to Gildford, and other bikers debating the same detour decided to, too, when they saw me turn. We stopped at the Merc, short for the Gildford Mercantile, run by a very chatty woman. She and her husband were from California, where he had health issues that had him "hooked up to machinery,"so his machine shop was going under, one of their parents died, and their two-year old had congestive heart failure (he's fine now). She talked about the power or prayer and coincidences that led them to leave CA, buy the store and start a new life. It's the only grocery for 30 miles, and her husband runs a machine shop downstairs, she runs the Merc, and they live upstairs. Their boys go to school across the street, and have lots of freedom to play and roam and go gopher hunting.

We're in Havre now (day 20) on our day off. Last night we had beef or veggie stroganoff as dinner choices at the trailer. After dinner, the motel shuttle took my current roommate Laura and me (we're assigned different roommates each night) to Walmart for more sunblock.

Today, I'm just catching up on this and later will go see the restored "Underground Havre, " which consists of bordellos, drug dens, and a place that Al Capone stayed. Other than that, Havre doesn't have much.